The New Internet Pantry

October 21, 2020 1:54 AM

Katie Okamoto explores the world of direct-to-consumer (DTC) olive oils, spices, grains, and seasonings like EXAU, Loisa, and Fly By Jing. “For outsider pantry brands that seek to gain traction within the food-retail industry—which skews white and male—the DTC model has made business possible without huge amounts of capital or buy-in.”
posted by adrianhon (16 comments total)

One box of Australian salt costs $100; the monthly subscription option is called “White Tears.”

One of the books I'm working through right now is The Secret Life of Groceries, which talks about some aspects of the food business that skew white and male, and some further down the chain that do not.

One of the chapters that still strikes me is the one on truckers rushing retail product to distribution centers. Drivers are leveraged into levels of debt in order to keep operating, manipulated into what might have been called indentured servitude in another time and place.

I wonder if the scale of what these DTC operations sell is on a level that has any positive impact on these people's lives — or others along the supply chain, including women (say, referring back to the book) trying to get their product on supermarket shelves. Does spending $100 on a box of salt reduce this and similar kinds of exploitation along the pipeline that keeps our pantries stocked, or does it just sweep it under the rug so that a handful of savvy marketers make a few dollars off of rich (often white) people either feeling guilty about their wealth, or who want to flex conspicuous consumption?

This, particularly, struck me:

While the initial explosion in sales has calmed down, Wardy says he’s gratified to see appreciation and demand for stone-ground heritage grits grow. “In the South, grits are an everyday thing. But to see people say, ‘These are the best grits I’ve ever had. What did you do?’ when they’re just plain grits, that’s something,” he says.

Marketing seems to have an amazingly powerful effect on how we value food. Some of us stuck at home during a pandemic, lucky enough to still make a paycheck, seem like valuable targets for it. Food for thought.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:55 AM on October 21, 2020 [2 favorites]

Marketing seems to have an amazingly powerful effect on how we value food.

And no doubt marketing is where the white-and-male businesses will use their capital advantage to regain their selling advantage.
posted by clawsoon at 6:56 AM on October 21, 2020

I am a target of this because of how much I've been cooking while in quarantine. It's been most of a year now, so that is a lot of cooking. I started experimenting with trying to find the exact brands recommended in cookbooks. For instance, I love the book Six Seasons and have been systematically working my way through it. It's the kind of book that takes simple ingredients at their peak to make something exceptional, and the author recommends specific brands for things like vinegar. Since my food budget was now much lower than normal, I decided I could splurge on things like fancy beans to see if it was really worth it.

So far I've discovered that fancy beans really are better, like Rancho Gordo and Zürsun. Fancy pasta is noticeably better, but there doesn't seem to be a huge difference between fancy pasta brands, so you can usually find something good at any supermarket. Whether all of these things are worth the price increase is a decision you have to make yourself, given that the non-fancy version of these items are extremely cheap. I will say that the better brands of canned tuna ARE worth it for me. Olive oil is worth it to me because I prepare a lot of salads and dips where the olive oil is a primary ingredient. (I mostly cook vegan, and a great olive oil can make up for not having a good butter.)

I am not sure about the quality difference between spice brands. Fresher is better, and it's hard to tell how fresh it is when you buy it. Ordering online does mean you are not limited to your local store selection though, and in the case of Penzys and Spicewalla, it isn't any more expensive.

Subscribing to a "pasta club" was pretty fun, but I won't renew for cost reasons.

Nuggs taste like Burger King nuggets, for better or for worse. Morningstar is better.

Locally here in Austin, a lot of specialty food shops have sprung up in the last year. We have a place called Steamies that just sells dumplings for your freezer. Chop Chop sells frozen noodles. Daijoubu Mart brought together Japanese vendors selling items like cocktails or onigiri. There are two new different fresh bread services, one that specializes in Japanese bakery items and one that utilizes native Mexican grains. It has been nice to "shop local" and keep people on their feet in a safe way during this time. However, all these DTC and similar shops seem to me to be like the splintering of "cable" into a handful of different specialty services that you need to subscribe to to get the same thing. There is more diversity due to specialization, and small creators have a chance to standout. The end consumer, though, has to manage many more transactions, spending more time immersed in capitalist exchanges.
posted by tofu_crouton at 7:17 AM on October 21, 2020 [6 favorites]

I work in a food-industry-adjacent role and am an adventurous home cook, and I'd never heard of any of these. I'll pass on the "white tears," but am excited to explore the rest.
posted by libraryhead at 7:55 AM on October 21, 2020

> Marketing seems to have an amazingly powerful effect on how we value food.

There are different grits, though, and some are definitely better than others. One of the traits of delicious grits seems to be an irregular grind; the best, most flavorful that I've had was closer to hominy, in that some bits were intact enough to be recognizable as pieces of corn.

You don't really have to mine the depths of regional heritage grain mills. The white grits from Trader Joe's are fantastic -- pretty expensive at something like $2.50 for 12 oz, but a whole lot cheaper than anything marketed as artisanal, particularly if you live in the northeast or midwest, and in my experience tastier than most of them. And I'm saying that as a resident of North Carolina with my choice of four or five regional grits mills stocking the local groceries starting at under $1/lb, and maybe twice as many options starting at twice the price if I include the gourmet-oriented groceries.

And fwiw I was slower on the uptake about this than my wife.
posted by ardgedee at 7:59 AM on October 21, 2020

and abstain from supporting retailers that were coming under fire for insufficient worker protections and benefits - therefore putting an already struggling worker out of a job....

If you have a monthly subscription to buy 9oz of salt a month then, regardless of the moral sanctimony you may position yourself in, your health will suffer along with your bank balance. Far better that you take that same $100 and make a donation to ACLU / a food bank / A.N. Other charity than allow someone to profit from your guilt. Past actions by others should be redressed but all I see here is others profiting from the guilt of others. That in itself is morally repugnant.

Yes, take action to support organizations who are working to make others lives better. The food supply chain is so poorly structured and the negative impact of large agro-business on food quality and availability is ever present. As an example, more than 80 percent of Americans discard perfectly good, consumable food simply because they misunderstand expiration labels. This leads to nearly 40% of food going to waste in the US while 30+ million people have food insecurity. There are third-world countries who are doing far more to provide aid to their people than happens here in the US...
posted by IndelibleUnderpants at 8:04 AM on October 21, 2020

The article didn’t help me figure out if any of these spice vendors are actually any good. One of the things that has frustrated me about pandemic grocery shopping is that I’ve chosen to avoid the bulk spices and bins at the coop (first because I didn’t want to touch what others had touched, and later because I didn’t want to spend the extra time breathing the same air as the stubborn, slow, oblivious old hippies in the bulk area). So I’d love to find an online spice source that is cheaper than Penzeys but doesn’t require that I buy one pound bags. Any recommendations?
posted by Maarika at 8:25 AM on October 21, 2020

Maarika at 8:25 AM

Obviously depending upon the spice you are looking for it will determine where to go. Many of the 'regular' spices (turmeric, black/white pepper, 'Himalayan' salt, cumin, coriander...) are available in Indian and Asian stores at considerably less than the regular supermarkets ranging in size from several ounces to bulk bags. Equally, if you are concerned about the freshness of a spice and/or have limited space then 'collective purchasing' should be considered. For powders like cumin and coriander I buy the seeds and grind using one of several coffee grinders I purchased for <$5 from Goodwill and similar stores. Only the amount I would likely use in the next week/month or even specifically for the dish I am cooking - tempering and then grinding old style with a pestle and mortar. Any extra I store in re-used jars or Ball jars vacuum sealed using the adapter from a Foodsaver machine.

As for online? A simple search will reveal a host of links when you search for 'Indian spices online'. Note: not all spices they sell are specifically 'Indian'. Same for 'Asian' spices. What spices or ingredients are you looking for?
posted by IndelibleUnderpants at 8:42 AM on October 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

Vouching for Fly by Jing, at the least. It's fantastic stuff, and the chili crisp is a regular in my fridge. (The zhong dumpling sauce would be except I'd go through it too quick for the price; there's definitely a sweet spot for these sorts of "pantry upgrades" where you want it to last long enough to feel worthwhile but also you don't want it to languish unused)
posted by CrystalDave at 8:43 AM on October 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

Incidentally, if you are looking for a wonderful source of information regarding spices I heartily recommend Gernot Katzers Spice pages ... here. Filled with in depth and heavily researched details regarding most spices available, including in several instances links to recipes too.....
posted by IndelibleUnderpants at 8:48 AM on October 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

If you're looking for more Direct-To-Consumer product analysis, I've recently been enjoying the "All Consuming" podcast with Adam Lisagor and Noah Kalina. Each week they (humorously) review an individual DTC product, typically one that they discovered via their Instagram feed. Not all of them are food reviews, but the first two were about NUGGS, the vegan "chicken" nuggets, and Magic Spoon, the "healthy" kids cereal which is actually aimed at adults.
posted by jeremias at 9:13 AM on October 21, 2020

This seems like a good excuse to talk about one of my favorite Weibo accounts, Bamboo-Monster. Bamboo-Monster lives in Sichuan and sells smoked bamboo produced by her neighbors through the e-commerce platform Weidian owned by Weibo. (Imagine Twitter and Ebay mushed together.)
Bamboo-Monster writes very lyrically and evocatively about food and people in the small town she grew up in. So her Weibo stream goes something like:
-- preview of upcoming products,
-- what she made for breakfast that morning (something spicy),
-- the bare-knuckles fight her mom won to stake the best stall position in the market twenty years ago,
-- review of the fermented beans a customer returned to her (yes it was too salty and yes she talked to her fermented bean guy),
-- salutes to itinerary acrobatic troupes.
I'm one of her many followers who clamor for a book of essays from her.
posted by of strange foe at 10:15 AM on October 21, 2020

I don't think of Penzeys as particularly expensive for the quality? I mean, yeah, if you are cooking in restaurant quantities you might look for something cheaper, and undoubtedly for most more specialist spices the relevant ethnic grocery will be cheaper, but for general spices they seem not much more than supermarket brands like McCormicks but higher quality.
posted by tavella at 12:15 PM on October 21, 2020

During lockdown, there were some "ethnic" items I couldn't get at the local store, so I went online. Two of the vendors came to my house in their own cars (wearing masks and distancing). It was almost like the old timey mom-and-pop store in the village when I was a kid. We could talk about the products and recipes and how their business was doing.
Because I was isolating and still mostly cook for me, I only needed their service that one time. But I definitely think I'm getting back to them when life gets back to normalish.
posted by mumimor at 12:16 PM on October 21, 2020 [2 favorites]

Yeah, Fly by Jing’s chili crisp is phenomenal. I have 5-6 others in my fridge but it’s by far my favorite. I’ve also ordered from Diaspora and have been happy with the quality and wish I ordered more (I just got the turmeric and the popcorn seasoning blend). But I almost never eat out, especially now, so feel pretty fine devoting a decent chunk of the grocery budget to “fancy.”
posted by jeweled accumulation at 12:45 PM on October 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

Maarika, The Head Nut is a spice store in Philadelphia's Reading Terminal market that sells online. The minimum for each item varies but for most things is 2-4 ounces, and they have a huge variety.
posted by sepviva at 4:23 AM on October 22, 2020